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  • From: Bill Shoemaker <wshoemak AT illinois.edu>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] peppers
  • Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:33:58 -0500 (CDT)

We have had a great pepper crop in northern Illinois, despite more than
double the normal rainfall during June and July. We didn't have 85F soil
temps. We never do. We planted on black plastic mulch. We had drip tape but
never hooked it up because of the rain. We ended up with really nice bell
peppers, a huge crop. We had great jalapenos, anaheims, bananas and cayennes.

I've been growing pepper for >25 years and my experience has been that
peppers are favored by stable conditions. They can be hot, or cool weather,
but they need stable moisture supply. They self pollinate, so bees are
helpful but not necessary. Fertility helps overall, but if you do a god job
of feeding the soil, you may not need to add fertilizer. We did not add
fertilizer this year. We had them on high ground so the excessive rain
quickly drained off. But they never suffered for water either. So in the end
I think stable moisture supply is critical, never too much, never too little.
In high temperatures that is really important. The black plastic mulch really
helps because it prevents evaporation and excessive moisture build-up during
heavy rains., unless you're on low ground.

Bill

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:59:07 -0400
>From: "Dalew Farms" <dalew AT phonenet.ca>
>Subject: Re: [Market-farming] peppers
>To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>
> Well, not that other people's misery makes me feel
> better, but after reading this thread about other
> folks lack of peppers this year, I don't feel so bad
> about our own pepper crop failure, or near failure.
> I've got a similar story to report on peppers as
> others.
>
> This year, we grew more peppers than ever, and did a
> better job of starting the plants. (We transplanted
> into 36's a second time in the greenhouse, instead
> of putting the plants out straight from 50's) We
> put better looking transplants out than we ever have
> before. Planted onto some red plastic, and some
> black plastic mulch. Haven't really seen a
> difference there. (although did get more early
> tomatoes on the red plastic) We have great looking
> pepper plants all season, but had very few flowers
> all season and even few peppers.
>
> Like was mentioned before, I do have some peppers
> coming on the Lipstick variety, which I tried for
> the first time this year. I also noticed the other
> day that I have a few late peppers coming on Carmen,
> although not nearly as heavy a yield on them as
> previous years. Other than those, most of my sweet
> pepper varieties don't even have a pepper on them.
> We'll probably salvage what we can from the patch
> next week to try to get enough to put into our CSA,
> so if there is one variety or anothe that stands out
> I'll try to report in with that. This was really
> disapointing this year, because we've had 2 years of
> terribly cold and wet weather before this year, so
> we had been hoping for an awesome pepper crop once
> we finally got some heat! Turns out last years crop
> was much much better!
>
> I did notice though, that in my area on a couple of
> tours I went to, that there were some peppers on the
> plants. Both of these situations the amount of
> pepper plants being grown was pretty small, about
> the amount of an avid backyard gardener, the plants
> looked kind of so-so, but they did have a half
> decent amount of peppers on them. My guess so far
> is that since we did a "better" job on our pepper
> transplants this year, we ended up having ours at
> the stage where they should have been flowering when
> it was very hot at night, and we lost our crop, and
> that these other nearby gardens did get a crop of
> peppers because their plants must have hit a
> different weather pattern and flowered when we had
> some cooler nights!?!?
>
> Anyways, thanks for starting this thread, I don't
> feel alone on this one anymore!
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jay Sleichter
> To: Market Farming
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 11:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [Market-farming] peppers
>
>Are we talking about growing peppers outside or in High
>Tunnels? If we are talking about outside, they were a
>total flop this year. I am usually picking them by the
>bucket fulls, this year not so much. I know part of my
>problem was it was too wet in June. I ended up with some
>leaf diseases and I many of the plants dropped leaves. I
>sprayed with copper several times and they came out of
>it. Then the heat came. I picked many of the peppers,
>small and all so they would burn up. Then the rains came
>back and the weeds and crab grass grew. Too little, too
>late.
>
>However, if we are talking about peppers in my high
>tunnels, they have been one of the bright spots of the
>year. I planted two twin rows of 75 for a grand total of
>150 plants. I started picking them on June 16th and have
>been picking my fill for the markets ever since. I was
>picking bells big enough to fill a pint sized strawberry
>baskets. They were just HUGE! At a $1 to $1.50 a piece I
>was happy. I am still picking, granted they are much
>smaller, two to a basket, I still had 6 plastic grocery
>bags full for my market on Wednesday. Not too bad, for
>me. As far as varieties, I had probably 12 different
>ones. All were good at one time or another. I will be
>picking these guys until the frost does them in. Probably
>in November.
>
>Jay
>
>Jay's Jellies, Produce and More
>Clay Center, Kansas
>www.jaysjellies.com
>http://highfarming.blogspot.com/
>
>--- On Thu, 9/9/10, Shawnee Flowerfarmer
><farmingflowers AT hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Shawnee Flowerfarmer <farmingflowers AT hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Market-farming] peppers
> To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 9:52 PM
>
> This discussion on peppers is another example of why I
> love this list serve. I had been fretting over my bad
> pepper year alone; I never have a bad "anything "year
> without understanding the reasons why, but I am stumped
> now.
> I too, had plants with great foliage and few fruit,
> cayenne did just fine but every sweet pepper pretty much
> failed. Lipstick, and Carmen-a bull's horn type from
> Johnny's-broke my heart. Both of these have been my
> staples for years...movie star,
> cover-of-the-seed-catalogue perfect usually. But
> nothing in 2010 and I can't find a reason why. I
> finally faced the fact that even a new crop of flowers
> wouldn't have time to ripen here in North Central
> Illinois-close enough to throw a cat over the border at
> the cheddarheads-and pulled everything up...replanted
> with second season crops.
> Very interested in any ideas....
> Shawnee, zone 5, not picking a peck of any kind of
> peppers and feeling humbled by the secret life of plants
> again.
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
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William H Shoemaker, UI-Crop Sciences
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
St Charles Horticulture Research Center
535 Randall Road St Charles, IL 60174
630-584-7254; FAX-584-4610




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